


but this is a world of sweets and sours

by faege



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s06e01 Exile on Main St., Gen, Soulless Sam Winchester, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-26
Updated: 2010-09-26
Packaged: 2017-10-23 13:42:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/250936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faege/pseuds/faege
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Sam is gone, Dean has nightmares.</p>
            </blockquote>





	but this is a world of sweets and sours

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Edgar Allen Poe's poem _Israfel._

He dreams Sam is on the ceiling, pinned there and butterflied so the fire reaches his heart first. Sam burns and burns and burns and in all his screaming, Dean never once hears _Take me down._

When Dean wakes up, he cries because when he broke that was all he asked for.

:::

He dreams of visiting nursing homes, weaving his way through wheelchairs and ignoring the wrinkled hands clutching at his shirt as he passes. He’s looking for the one dark head among all the gray and when he finds it he can’t bear to look at it.

Sam’s eyes are glazed, looking off at something else, and when anyone moves too fast he flinches. A string of drool hangs from his chin and when Dean slowly pulls Sam into his arms, careful of the sporadic tremors in Sam’s wasted limbs, Sam doesn’t hug him back.

Instead, he whispers, _Tighter. If Lucifer wants me to hurt, he’s going to have to squeeze tighter._

When Dean wakes up, he cries because Sam’s not broken yet; he still has the strength to make that defiant challenge even if his mind is past paying the price for it.

:::

He dreams of iron racks and rings of salt, syringes of holy water and enough knives to fight a war. He dreams that he’s at his old familiar place and another soul is being brought to him, another turkey slid onto the cutting board, ready to be carved. He’s become accustomed to this, emotionless as a surgeon, but his eyes widen when Sam is strapped down in front of him, docile and accepting.

 _Me or me,_ Sam says. _Me or me, Dean._

Sam on the rack or Sam carving up others next to him, it’s got to be one or the other, either way he’s going to have to break Sam. So he calculates the damage and nods his head, putting a hand out for a scalpel.

 _We’ll start small._

When Dean wakes up, he cries because Sam held back his screams for Dean and gave his beating heart willingly into his brother’s hands.  


:::

He dreams of Sam-shaped holes in his life and the way he’s started to fill them with other things. Sam walks beside him, examining the fit, trying to see if he could slide into Dean’s pieces and lock with them the way he used to.  
 _  
There’s no place for me_ , Sam says and Dean has to agree. There are still holes but they’re not Sam-shaped (because even Ben and Lisa aren’t enough to fill up as much space as Sam—he’s so much bigger than they are—and there’s no way to fit them all in to where just Sam belongs).

So Sam gets into a big black car and drives away alone.

When Dean wakes up, he cries because Sam’s not Sam anymore, and he’s not Dean.

:::

He dreams that Sam’s face is smooth as marble, his eyes as removed as an archangel’s, and he remembers Azazel’s taunt. He wants to ask Bobby _Do you think there’s something wrong with my brother?  
_

But for the opposite reason this time.  



End file.
